The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul

by Albert Robida

  The most touching episode of this race through the houses of an entire quarter occurred when our friends had just passed like lightning through the kitchens of a large restaurant; after having gone through two empty rooms, they through themselves upon a cardboard partition, slashed it with sweeping sword-thrusts and fell into a private booth occupied by a lady of the highest society, at whose feet a handsome Japanese youth was murmuring sweet nothings. When Farandoul appeared with a naked sword, the lady thought it was her husband, released a terrible scream, and fainted. The 18 fierce and helmeted warriors filed past the terrified pair. The compassionate Mandibul, bringing up the rear, paused to throw a few drops of water into the lady’s face, and did not rejoin his friends until he had seen her come round.

  The Japanese soldiers launched in pursuit of the mariners had stopped in bewilderment before the initial breach; then, with forceful apologies for the people they were disturbing, they too had plunged into the houses—but instead of forging straight ahead like the fugitives, they had lost a good deal of time in hesitations and precautions. After a quarter of an hour, they had lost the track, and the Japanese gave up the pursuit.

  Having traversed an entire quarter of the city in this time our friends had reached a street leading out into open country and had set off across the fields. After three hours of forced marching, without encountering anyone, they were finally able to rest without anxiety in the middle of a thick forest, whose uneven ground was cut through by ravines in which it was easy to hide. In consequence, after a little supper supplied by the restaurant where they had thrown such a fright into the two lovers, the brave mariners threw themselves down on beds of dry leaves and went to sleep.

  “Well,” said Mandibul, as he stretched his arms and legs on waking up the following morning, “what do we do now? This is still a country that seems to me to be unhealthy for us.”

  “We’ll stay here for a few days more,” Farandoul replied. “We won’t have time to get bored, for we now have two projects to bring to a successful conclusion: the removal of the white elephant from the Temple of the 33,333 Spirits, and the removal of the charming Yamida from the palace of that frightful Kaido!”

  “Very well—but how shall we get out of Japan afterwards? A princess and a white elephant will be no small encumbrance.”

  “Yes, that’s the real difficulty. No boat and no money to charter one! Hang on, though—what about our flower-boat? We left it rather abruptly…suppose we were to go to find it in Yokohama and propose to take those ladies back to China? We could head for Siam first, with the elephant…”

  “Good idea! It’s a matter of three days to travel to Yokohama and return to the little port where we disembarked.”

  “Well, my dear Mandibul, take six men with you, return to the flower-boat, be persuasive—steal it, if necessary—and come back as quickly as possible! During that time, we’ll make plans for our two enterprises.”

  The mariners knew the way. Scarcely six leagues separated them from the coast; they soon covered that distance, without any unfortunate encounters, and recovered the boat that had brought them. Everything went well. The flower-boat’s occupants were getting bored in Yokohama and eagerly welcomed the idea of returning to China under the direction of the skillful mariner who had taken them away from their Blue River.

  Three days later, our friends were at the rendezvous. Farandoul had spent his time well; he had been to reconnoiter the Temple of the 33,333 Spirits, fortunately situated not far from the sea, and had ventured, well-disguised and in the company of the interpreter, into the city of Miko, to the very walls of Kaido’s palace.

  The interpreter had been able to gather a few items of information. Princess Yamida went out every evening in a norimon, without an escort, to take the air in the immense gardens of the palace. It would be easy to get into the gardens and carry off the norimon and the princess.

  Farandoul fixed the execution of his two projects for the same evening. He took personal responsibility for the more delicate of the two missions, the abduction of Yamida, and entrusted the theft of the white elephant to Mandibul, supported by ten sailors. The two groups separated immediately, in order to reach the fields of their operations as dusk fell.

  Mandibul and his ten men had to climb the mountain that bore the Temple of the 33,333 Spirits at its summit; when the night was far enough advanced, they had to make a hole in the surrounding wall, break down a few doors, and make a quick departure with the elephant.

  Farandoul and the interpreter, followed by five sailors, would head for the city of Miko; by the first rays of moonlight, they would climb over a breach in the wall of the park and make their way from thicket to thicket in the direction of the palace.

  What luck! In front of the door of the princess’s apartments was the norimon that Farandoul had observed the day before, carrying Yamida in the city. The four porters were sitting on the steps of the palace, awaiting orders.

  Eventually, when a nocturnal calm had descended upon the park and the palace, Yamida appeared on the first floor and leaned thoughtfully on the elegant balcony, supported on her elbows. Farandoul’s heart beat faster. Of whom could she be thinking, if not the valiant foreigner who had violated the throne of Prince Kaido for her sake and almost become the sovereign of the province?

  After a few minutes of reverie on her balcony, Yamida said a few words to the norimon-porters who were waiting for her and went back into her apartment. She was undoubtedly about to descend. The porters had stood up and had brought the norimon closer to the staircase.

  A woman, wrapped up against the cold, appeared on the steps and slipped into the norimon. The robust porters lifted up their gracious burden and departed at a rhythmic pace in the direction of a little lake, a fantastic mirror in which the bizarrely-trimmed trees were reflected in the moonlight, their branches curled like florid arabesques.

  Farandoul and the mariners followed behind, on tiptoe. After circling the lake several times, the porters were about to head back to the palace again when seven men, all heavily armed, threw themselves upon them and put swords to their throats.

  “Not a word, not a sound, or you’re dead!” the interpreter murmured to them in a muffled tone. “Follow us, with the princess!”

  “But…” one of the porters tried to say.

  Two sharp squeals from the norimon interrupted him. Farandoul ran to the norimon to reassure Yamida, but an exclamation from the interpreter stopped him dead.

  “Look out! A night patrol is coming!”

  Indeed, scarcely 50 meters away, 20 soldiers were coming at a run, each with a lantern in one hand and a pike in the other.

  “Straight ahead!” cried Farandoul, gesturing to the porters to run. “To the breach!” And he remained as a rearguard himself, with Tournesol.

  The patrol gained ground, but the mariners succeeded in getting the norimon through the breach; then half the troop continued on its way while the other half remained in the breach to prevent the Japanese patrol passing through.

  The position was good, the mariners taking advantage of it to lash out for a good half hour. Eventually, despairing of getting over the wall, the officer in command of the patrol sent someone to the palace to obtain reinforcements. Farandoul and his mariners leapt to the ground and set off at top speed to catch up with the norimon.

  The route was long; the porters were exhausted, but the Japanese were running 50 meters behind the little troop and it was vital that they should not catch up. They covered a few leagues thus, which seemed mortally long to everyone. Farandoul never quit the rear-guard, in order to cover the retreat with his best blades.

  Finally, they drew near to the place of rendezvous, the little fishing-port where the flower-boat was and to which Mandibul, if he had succeeded, would have brought the white elephant.

  Cheers raised from close by made Farandoul shiver. It was Mandibul—who, seeing his friends hard pressed by the Japanese, was running towards them with a few men.

  “Well?�
�� Farandoul shouted to him, increasing his speed.

  “Complete success!” Mandibul replied. “The white elephant is ours! The pirates are thwarted! I was afraid of arriving after them, like the other times.”

  “Bravo! The King of Siam’s millions are in the bag!”

  “Look!” Mandibul continued, pointing to the flag-decorated masts of the flower-boat, visible some distance away amid the rocks. “Our men are putting the elephant aboard; you have the princess. We can cut the mooring-ropes immediately and set out to sea!”

  Meanwhile, the mariners, having completed the rather awkward embarkation of the white elephant, were running to confront the numerous Japanese launched in pursuit of Yamida’s abductors.

  The norimon, having reached the rocks, had been deposited on the strand by the worn-out porters. A boat had been fetched in order return them to the flower-boat, anchored a few meters from the shore. Farandoul hurled himself towards the norimon, opened the side-door, and released a terrible cry.

  The Japanese woman whose abduction had just cost him so much trouble was not Yamida! It was the governess of the maids of honor—an eminently respectable lady—that Farandoul had carried off.

  A frightful catastrophe! What should he do? What could he do? And what about the Japanese, who would hurl themselves upon the mariners in two minutes?

  “Let’s get aboard anyway!” cried Farandoul, leaving the poor governess semiconscious in her norimon. “Let’s save the white elephant, at least!”

  All the mariners gathered on the beach were about to leap into the boat to head for the flower-boat when a loud hurrah resounded aboard the latter vessel. Twenty horrible figures had just emerged from the hold and were throwing themselves upon the mooring-cable, hatchets in hand.

  The young Chinese women, terrified, had taken refuge at the stern. The white elephant, solidly installed by the mariners, wedged on the deck, also released desolate squeals. It had just recognized its persecutors, the pirates who had already sold and stolen it so many times.

  Farandoul understood everything. Once again, the white elephant had escaped him; a complete triumph had turned into an irreparable disaster!

  The flower-boat, caught by the tide, drew away from the shore, and the pirates hoisted the large sail with howls of triumph. Farandoul recognized the man standing on the top deck as the man glimpsed in Nanking on the Blue River, the fake bayaderes’ musician from Kifir.

  “I’m going to collect the king of Siam’s millions!” the pirate shouted, insolently. “Goodbye, and thanks for bringing us the elephant yourselves!”

  Farandoul darted a rapid glance behind him. His men had already come to grips with the Prince of Miko’s soldiers.

  “Retreat! Retreat!” he cried, pointing to the little boat grounded on the shore.

  They all piled into it pell-mell and shoved it away from the shore. They were just in time, for the flood of Miko’s soldiers as about to overwhelm, them—but the situation was not good; the little boat seemed liable to founder at any moment beneath its load.

  Farandoul and Mandibul leapt upon the oars. “Too many enemies on land!” Farandoul shouted. “Let’s try to reach the open sea and catch up with the flower-boat!”

  Mandibul shook his head. “We can follow them,” he said, “but catching up with them will be difficult. See how the breeze is getting up, making them fly over the waves!”

  Indeed, the distance between the feeble rowing-boat and the flower-boat was increasing by the minute. Within an hour, it would have disappeared, carrying with it any hope of ever winning the reward promised by His Majesty the King of Siam.

  “It doesn’t matter—keep following! Besides, what else can we do? Don’t we have to get away from the Japanese, who are looking for a boat at this very minute in order to chase us? Fortunately, all the fishermen from the port are at sea…but now I think of it, if we can get hold of one of the fishing-boats that’s plying the coast out there, two or three leagues away, we might have a chance of getting our elephant back. That’s it! Row hard; all is not lost! We’ll catch up!”

  “Oh, the brigands!” murmured Mandibul, tearing out a few hairs. “Who could have suspected that, while we were going to so much trouble to steal the elephant from the Temple of the 33,333 Spirits, those villainous pirates were waiting for us, hidden on the flower-boat, ready to snatch it from under our very noses!”

  IX.

  The crew of a large Japanese fishing-boat could not have been more surprised when they saw a troop of wild-eyed three-sword warriors climb aboard. The owner thought at first that they were conspirators in flight and got ready to ask them for a good price to transport them no matter where, but when he understood, from the interpreter’s discourse, that it was a matter of running after a gang of pirates, he pulled a face.

  Farandoul, standing sadly in the stern of the fishing-boat, darted one last glance towards the land of Japan, which he might never see again, and among the bushes of which he had left a shred of his heart—a heart so often and so cruelly rent! It was over! Yamida would have to remain Princess of Miko, and Kaido triumphant! Destiny had intended it thus; the charming Yamida must remain a mere apparition in his life.

  Soon, night fell; the coasts of Japan disappeared and the flower-boat vanished into the darkness. Fortunately, its signal-lights shone all through the night, and maintained our friends on its track.

  At daybreak they saw it again; it had resumed the course it had followed in coming from China and was heading southwards in order to reach the Yellow Sea, either by the Bango channel or the Van Diemen strait, between the southern point of Japan and the Ryukyu Islands.

  Unfortunately, squalls were frequent in these parts, and in the afternoon of that day the strong morning breeze turned into a veritable tempest.

  The flower-boat, dancing over the waves and presenting a large surface to the wind, would have considerable difficulty maintaining itself. The pursuing mariners anxiously followed the maneuvers of their imperiled enemies; if they foundered, they would take the poor terribly-shaken white-elephant with them.

  Eventually, the expected denouement arrived; the two vessels, almost within sight of one another, were carried on to the coast of Korea and wrecked.

  Farandoul and his men succeeded in swimming ashore and set off in search of the debris of the flower-boat. What had become of the white elephant in that lamentable disaster? They marched for hours without discovering any wreck; they scoured all the ramifications of the coast and all the clefts in the rocks without finding anything. And yet they had seen the vessel adrift, dismasted by the storm!

  After a great deal of fatigue, they finally caught sight of the poor flower-boat, almost intact, lying on the sand at the far end of a small bay. It was surrounded by a multitude of Koreans, who were busy ardently taking it apart. The mariners soon arrived into their midst, to their great amazement. A rich lord, the owner of this part of the coast, was there, sharing out the Chinese women between the distinguished folk of the region, who were delighted with the windfall. The flower-boat and its cargo belonged to him, according to the law governing shipwrecks. The Chinese women seemed content with this conclusion to their peregrinations; as soon as they saw Farandoul, their benefactor, they ran to thank him.

  “What about the white elephant?” asked the latter, cutting their demonstrations short. “Did any harm come to it when you ran aground?”

  “No, the impact wasn’t that bad—we got stuck in the sand. It rolled on to the ground, breaking the sides of the boat. The pirates jumped down and ran after it, leaving us behind. Oh, the brigands! Not the slightest delicacy! Brutal creatures! Do you know…?”

  “There’s no time. Which way did they go, and when?”

  “That way, in the middle of the night.”

  “Twelve hours start! We’ll catch them up. Forwards!”

  Our friends got under way and were soon following the elephant’s tracks across the plain. Where were they, and where were they headed? No one had any idea. At dusk they arri
ved at a Korean village called Tsin-Tsou. The elephant had been seen there that morning, but it was no longer white, the pirates having had time to paint it grey.

  On the following day they passed through the mountains and arrived on the coast of the Yellow Sea; the thieves were following the coast, heading towards China, doubtless to make contact with some Korean pirate junk on which they would be able to obtain passage.

  The interpreter’s questions about a white elephant had, however, attracted the attention of the Korean authorities. The Koreans also set out to capture the pirates and the white or grey elephant. The coasts were being watched; the pirates had undoubtedly noticed that, for they made numerous detours in order to put all the searchers off the track.

  It was in this manner that the pirates, with the elephant, and Farandoul, with his mariners, arrived at the Chinese border after crossing the Pepisehan and Tsi-jouan mountains and the province of Chingking, a hilly country that the Chinese called the province of 1000 mountains. The Great Wall of China displayed its towers and its interminable crenellated line over the slopes of hills, in the depths of ravines and the cloud-shrouded summits of rocks.

  “Ugh!” said Mandibul, on seeing it. “China: the 98,000 pieces! We’re condemned to death here.”

  “Bah! We’re getting used to condemnations now.”

  Our friends then committed the extreme imprudence, with regard to the extent of their police record in China, of once more setting foot in the Celestial Empire. They entered the country one evening and stopped off at an inn in order to converse with the local inhabitants.